Entertainment
Hollywood Writers Remain On Strike As Directors Reach Labour Pact
After three weeks of negotiations, a three-year contract was unveiled late on Saturday and will now be put to a vote by the Directors Guild of America’s (DGA) 19,000 members.
The DGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which represents Netflix, Walt Disney Co., and other big studios, said the agreement includes increases in pay and residuals as well as restrictions on the use of artificial intelligence.
The Writers Guild of America (WGA) has not planned any further negotiations with the studios and has been on strike since May 2nd, halting several TV and film productions.
A studio agreement with the DGA encouraged writers to return to the negotiating table during the previous WGA strike in 2007 and 2008. Chris Keyser, a WGA negotiator, believed that approach would not be successful this time on Friday.
Keyser remarked in a video that was uploaded to YouTube that “any deal that puts this town back to work runs straight through the WGA, and there is no way around that.”
On Sunday, a request for comment from the WGA received no immediate response.
Tuesday will be the day of the DGA’s vote to ratify its new contract. If accepted, it might serve as a guide for the writers who are on strike and impending negotiations between studios and SAG-AFTRA, the organization that represents Hollywood actors.
The DGA agreement gave directors a guarantee that “generative AI cannot replace the duties performed by members,” as well as pay increases starting at 5% in the first year and an increase in streaming residuals.
Writers and actors, who perceive their professions as being particularly susceptible to the new technology, are now quite concerned about AI.
In its negotiations, the WGA and SAG-AFTRA are both seeking AI protections as well as improvements in pay that they claim have lagged as businesses have reaped the benefits of the boom of streaming.
Results of the vote, which asked members to provide SAG-AFTRA’s negotiators the authority to organize a strike if necessary, are anticipated on Monday. The performers and studios will begin contract negotiations on Wednesday. On June 30th, the present labor contract will be over.
The WGA strike has hampered late-night programming production and halted high-profile initiatives like Netflix’s Stranger Things and a Game of Thrones spinoff.
